tonight on tv

​​​another white supremacist / says: america deserves a bettercolor scheme & I am tired / of nights& the news / the day wears me / long like a dress / mother gifts me daily / a knife that doubles /as a birthday / candle / she feeds my belly / into a balcony / prepares me / to be peopled / mymother says / pregnancy is carrying your own / conqueror / but I am afraid / of birth & meatlesscooking / my mother & her post / election texts: baobei, have you hear? / minority everywheremore attached / *sorry, I mean attacked / I tell my mother / I am safe / that I will live / until mydeath / I will name / each bend / in my body / rivering / out of this continent / tonight on tv / I re-watch lucy liu / in charlie’s angels / the first woman I loved / for looking more like me / than I do/ I press pause / I kiss the screen / til it blisters / I text my mother / tonight I am alive / & shetexts back: what doesn’t kill you / can only try / again

Amani Willett. OWS 2, 2012.

Kristin Chang has work published or forthcoming in Muzzle Magazine, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Wanderer, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for Best New Poets and is currently on staff at Winter Tangerine. Her website is kristinchang.com.

​Based in Brooklyn, New York, Amani Willett’s photography is driven by conceptual ideas surrounding family, history, memory, and the social environment. His first monograph, Disquiet, (Damiani, 2013) — a meditation on starting a family in a time of social unrest and uncertainty in America — was selected as one of the best books of the year by PDN, Photo-Eye (Todd Hido), and Conscientious (Joerg Colberg). Willett’s photographs are featured in the books Bystander: A history of Street Photography (forthcoming, Phaidon), Street Photography Now (Thames and Hudson), New York: In Color (Abrams), and in a wide range of publications including American Photography, Newsweek, Harper’s Magazine, and the New York Times. Amani completed an MFA in Photography, Video, and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in 2012.